It Is Never Too Late to Mend Part 136

"If it come within my knowledge," replied the senior, with grave politeness.

"Which weighs the heaviest, sir, a pound of gold or a pound of feathers?" and he winked at Nathan, but looked in Isaac's face as demure as a Quakeress.

"A pound of feathers," replied Isaac.

Robinson looked half puzzled, half satirical.

"A childish question," said Isaac sternly. "What boy knows not that feathers are weighed by Avoirdupois, and gold by Troy weight, and consequently that a pound of feathers weighs sixteen ounces, and a pound of gold but twelve?"

"Well, that is a new answer," cried Robinson. "Good-by, sir, you are too hard for me;" and he made off to his own tent. It was a day of defeats.

The moment he was out of hearing, Isaac laughed. The only time he had done it during six years. And what a laugh! How, sublimely devoid of merriment! a sudden loud cackle of three distinct cachinni not declining into a chuckle, as we do, but ending sharp in abrupt and severe gravity.

"I discomfited the young man, Nathan--I mightily discomfited him. Ha!

ha! ho! Nathan, did you as I bade you?"

"Yes, master, I found the man, and I sent Samuel, who went hastily to him and cried out, 'Mr. Meadows is in the camp and wishes to speak to you.' Master, he started up in wonder, and his whole face changed; without doubt he is the man you suspected."

"Yes," said Isaac, reflecting deeply. "The man is Peter Crawley; and what does he here? Some deep villainy lies at the bottom of this; but I will fathom it, ay, and thwart it, I swear by the G.o.d of Abraham. Let me think awhile in my tent. Sit you at the receipt of gold."

The old man sat upon a divan in his tent, and pondered on all that had happened in the mine; above all, on the repeated attacks that had been made on that one tent.

He remembered, too, that George had said sorrowfully to him more than once: "No letters for me, Mr. Levi, no letter again this month!" The shrewd old man tied these two threads together directly.

"All these things are one," said Isaac Levi.

Thus pondering, and patiently following out his threads, the old man paced a mile down the camp to the post-office, for he had heard the postman's horn, and he expected important letters from England, from his friend and agent at Farnborough, Old Cohen.

There were letters from England, but none in old Cohen's hand. He put them in his bosom with a disappointed look, and paced slowly, and deeply pondering, back toward his tent. He was about half way, when, much to his surprise, a stone fell close to him. He took, however, no notice, did not even accelerate his pace or look round; but the next moment a lump of clay struck him on the arm. He turned round, quivering with rage at the insult, and then he saw a whole band of diggers behind him, who the moment he turned his face began to hoot and pelt him.

"Who got poor Walker drowned? Ah! ah! ah!"

"Who refused to give evidence before Judge Lynch?" cried another, "Ah!

ah! ah!"

There were clearly two parties in the mob.

"Down with the Jew--the blood-sucker. We do all the work, and he gets all the profit. Ah! ah! ah!"

And a lump of clay struck that reverend head and almost stunned the poor old man. He sunk upon his knees, and in a moment his coat was torn to shreds, but with unexpected activity he wriggled himself free and drew a dagger long, bright, and sharp as a needle. His a.s.sailants recoiled a moment. The next a voice was heard from behind, "Get on both sides of him at once!"

Isaac looked and saw Peter Crawley. Then the old man trembled for his life, and cried, "Help! help!" and they hemmed him in and knocked his dagger out of his hand, and hustled and pommeled him, and would have torn him in pieces, but he slipped down, and two of them got in front and dragged him along the ground.

"To Walker's pool," cried brutus, putting himself at the head of those who followed.

All of a sudden Isaac, though half insensible, heard a roar of rage that seemed to come from a lion--a whiz, a blow like a thunder-clap--saw one of his a.s.sa.s.sins driven into the air and falling like a dead clod three yards off, found himself dropped and a man striding over him. It was George Fielding, who stood a single moment snorting and blowing out his cheeks with rage, then went slap at the mob as a lion goes at sheep; seized one of the small ruffians by the knees, and, by a tremendous effect of strength and rage, actually used him as a flail, and struck brutus with the man's head, and knocked that ruffian down stunned, and his nose leveled with his cheeks. The mob recoiled a moment from this one hero. George knew it could be but for a moment, so he had no sooner felled brutus, and hurled the other's carca.s.s in their faces, than he pounced on Isaac, whipped him on his back and ran off with him.

He had got thirty yards with him ere the staggered mob could realize it all.

The mob recovered their surprise, and with a yell like a pack of hounds bursting covert dashed after the pair. The young Hercules made a wonderful effort, but no mortal man could run very fast so weighted. In spite of his start they caught him in about a hundred yards. He heard them close upon him--put the Jew down--and whispered hastily, "Run to your tent," and instantly wheeled round and flung himself at thirty men.

He struck two blows and disabled a couple; the rest came upon him like one battering-ram and bore him to the ground; but even as he went down he caught the nearest a.s.sailant by the throat and they rolled over one another, the rest kicking savagely at George's head and loins. The poor fellow defended his head with one arm and his a.s.sailant's body for a little while, but he received some terrible kicks on the back and legs.

"Give it him on the head!"

"Kick his life out!"

"Settle his hash!"

They were so fiercely intent on finishing George that they did not observe a danger that menaced themselves.

As a round shot cuts a lane through a column of infantry, so clean came two files of special constables with their short staves severing the mob in two--crick, crack, crick, crick, crick, crick, crack, crack. In three seconds ten heads were broken, with a sound just like gla.s.s bottles, under the short, deadly truncheon, and there lay half a dozen ruffians writhing on the ground and beating the Devil's tattoo with their heels.

"Charge back!" cried the head-policeman as soon as he had cut clean through.

But at the very word the cowardly crew fled on all sides yelling. The police followed in different directions a little way, and through this error three of the felled got up and ran staggering off. When the head-policeman saw that he cried out:

"Back, and secure prisoners."

They caught three who were too stupefied to run, and rescued brutus from George, who had got him by the throat and was hammering the ground with his head.

"Let go, George," cried Policeman Robinson, in some anxiety, "you are killing the man."

"Oh, I don't want to kill him neither," said George.

And he slowly withdrew his grasp, and left off hammering with the rascal's head, but looked at him as if he would have preferred to have gone on a little longer. They captured the three others.

"Now secure them," cried Ede. "Out with your wipes."

"There is no need of wipes," said Robinson.

He then, with a slight blush, and rather avoiding George's eye, put his hand in his pockets and produced four beautiful sets of handcuffs, bran new, polished to the fine. With a magical turn of the hand he handcuffed the three men, still avoiding George's eye. Unnecessary. George's sense of humor was very faint, and so was his sweetheart's--a sad defect.

Perhaps I may as well explain here how Robinson came so opportunely to the rescue. The fact is, that a week ago he had ordered a lot of constables' staves and four sets of handcuffs. The staves were nicely painted, lettered "Captain Robinson's Police, A, B, C," etc. They had just come home, and Robinson was showing them to Ede and his gang, when a hullabaloo was heard, and Levi was seen full half a mile off being hunted. Such an opportunity of trying the new staves was not to be neglected. Ede and his men jumped out of their claim and ran with Robinson to the rescue. But they would have been too late if George, who had just come into the camp at that very part, had not made his n.o.ble and desperate a.s.sault and retreat, which baffled the a.s.sailants for two precious minutes.

Robinson. "What shall we do with them now we have got them?"

George. "Give them a kick apiece on their behinds, and let them go--the rubbish."

Robinson. "Not if I know it."

Ede. "I say blackguard 'em."

Robinson. "No, that would be letting ourselves down to their level. No, we will expose them as we did my old pal here before."

Ede. "Why that is what I mean. Ticket them--put a black card on them with their offense wrote out large."

No sooner said than done. All four were tied to posts in the sun, and black-carded, or, as some spell it, placarded, thus: